The Bitter Taste of Secrets
by writerdragonfly
Summary: Dean has secrets. He's human, that's to be expected, right? Female!Dean, gender dysphoria. Some minor Dean/others and endgame Dean/Cas.


**Warning:** Please note that this ficlet includes implied childhood sexual abuse between John and Dean Winchester.

* * *

Dean's gotten good at hiding.

He loves his dad and most days he hates him more. He hates him for what he does, hates him for bringing him and Sam on these trips, and he hates him for what happens after Sam is asleep.

Dean has secrets. He's human, that's to be expected, right?

Dean's secrets are just a little more serious than the usual.

He knows that it's not his fault. His father is a bastard of the worst kind. But Dean does what he has to in order to protect Dean. He's a good big brother.

Except when he's not.

-x-

Dean remembers before. He thinks of time as _Before the Fire_ and **After the Fire**. He remembers playing dress up and curling up with Mom after getting his hair braided.

He remembers being _Deanna_.

Not that Sam ever knew him that way.

A few weeks before the fire, he'd gotten lice from a kid at the park. His dad had been livid and angry but his mom had talked him down. They'd ended up shaving his hair short, because things like expensive shampoo were a little too much with a new baby and a perpetually growing Dean.

He never grew his hair again after that.

He doesn't know why his dad kept it short when he was young. Why Dean was first introduced as **Dean** and not Deanna. Maybe it was easier at first.

He just has no illusions about his dad forgetting that he's not his son. There was too much panting of his mom's name for that.

Dean doesn't like to think about it.

Sam doesn't know. Sam doesn't know their father pretends that Dean is their mother sometimes.

But he also doesn't know that Dean is a girl.

Dean likes it that way.

-x-

Dean doesn't have sex often. More than usual, he goes home with women. Women are easy. Women understand in a way that Dean just doesn't fathom.

When Dean first meets Ben Braeden, it doesn't go well. Ben is straight arrow, into blondes, and loves buxom breasts and curvy figures.

Dean doesn't have those things. But Ben Braeden is also a fantastic liar.

Dean hates him, after.

Of course, things don't go the way Dean expected. He manages to hide the pregnancy well. His father is gone the last few weeks, and he'd only made a few cursory remarks about Dean's weight.

Dean finds Lisa Braeden when he goes to find Ben. She tells him about her brother dying. He doesn't know what he'd been expecting, but he'd held out hope for giving Ben the baby and pretending everything was fine. He talks to Lisa for hours that night.

Two months later, he shows up on Lisa's doorstep. She shuffles the little bundle into her arms and Dean feels like he's making the first good decision in the baby's life.

Hunting isn't for him. He doesn't want little Ben to ever be near it.

Lisa promises to take care of him.

And that's enough for Dean.

-x-

Sometime he wonders if he would be better off not hiding his sex. If he was proudly female. But, regardless of it, he feels like he's a man. It feels right. He doesn't know if that's years of deluding himself because of his father or if he would have always felt this way. He's not sure he cares.

Sometimes, he thinks Bobby and Ellen know. Maybe not about his birth gender, but about the kind of man his father really is. But maybe both.

He never asks. They never tell. Perhaps it's better that way. How would he know?

One day, they're both dead and Dean still doesn't have answers. So does it matter?

( _Yes_ , Dean thinks later. _It does._ )

-x-

Sam sees Dean walking out of a bar with a pretty woman and assumes he's getting laid. More often than not, they separate when they get out. Dean's always upfront with them when he gets outside. Sometimes it takes bribery to keep them from going back inside-right away at least. He never really explains who Sam is in those cases. Just that his companion doesn't know what he is, that he doesn't want him to find out. Sometimes he calls Sam his partner, sometimes he lets the women think he's some kind of undercover cop.

Sometimes, the women bring him home anyway. They sleep with him or mother him a little and get him drunk and lament about men.

He wishes he could be real with Sam about those kind of things, sometimes.

By the time their father dies, he doesn't think Sam would trust him if he told the truth.

Dean wouldn't blame him.

-x-

Dean was lucky though. He didn't take testosterone until after the baby, but growing up he'd always been mostly flat chested. He kept himself bound most of the time anyway. Reassured Sam that he was fine, just got in a little fight if he asked about the bandages on his chest if he ever got caught shirtless. After the baby, he was always bound. He hadn't grown a lot, but those first few days were hell on his chest.

When Sam leaves for Stanford, Dean goes under the knife and has his breasts removed entirely.

Most of the time, Dean can handle being the way he is. Sometimes it's harder. He thinks Castiel will slip up a lot of the time, that he'll let Sam in on something that Dean's been hiding since he was four years old.

But he doesn't.

Sometimes Dean wonders if the Angels even know.

In the end, Castiel admits he doesn't understand humanity. He doesn't understand cultural norms or sexuality or gender really. His vessel has a gender but he doesn't. It's just easier to be he while he's in a male body.

He tells him why none of the Angels ever outed him.

It's the same reason really. Why would they pass judgement on that when they're both and neither too?

-x-

Over the years, Sam comes to hate Tuesdays. He's always been indifferent to Mondays, but Tuesdays are his hell.

He finds out why Dean prefers to wrap his chest himself on a Tuesday, why Dean never went swimming with his shirt off. He asks Dean on a Tuesday too. A lot of secrets come out then. And then the day starts all over again and Dean doesn't remember and Sam hates himself for taking the time loop for his own advantage then.

He doesn't say anything to Dean about his secret. He lets Dean go on keeping it. If Dean is ready, Sam will listen. In the mean time, Sam is too busy being glad that Dean's not dead.

-x-

Lucifer tells Sam who _(what)_ his dad really is.

That's his breaking point.

-x-

Dean falls in love with Thursdays. It just happens. Castiel holds him as he's shaking, and Dean is just tired.

He tries to tell Sam on a Thursday, but Sam just smiles and says "I know".

Dean doesn't have delusions that he's not broken. He knows he's broken. Some days it's hard to keep moving. His time in hell, his time with Alastair had been agony. Especially once the demon learned that Dean was female.

Dean knows he's broken. Knows he doesn't deserve happy and grace and smiles.

He lets Castiel in anyway.

He tells Charlie on a Thursday. He thinks she gets it better than most would. He thinks she's the best friend he's ever had.

Dean loves Thursdays. It takes a little while for things to catch up to him.

Castiel tilts his head to the side just so, a question on his face.

And Dean just knows.

He's not perfect. He's a **broken** doll, pieces torn off and mended. Some of them don't belong.

Some do.

Castiel is an angel who isn't always. He's not infallible.

But he's a steady presence at his back and he understands.

Dean doesn't know if they'll ever both be ready for sex. They'd be amazing at it. Dean knows that.

For now though? He's content to be with Castiel, at his side. No labels. No expectations.

He thinks about his son. About his sacrifice. He thinks about a decade of waiting and even more of pretending. He thinks about his choices and his mistakes. About the dead and the gone and he thinks about the future.

His father was a bastard who broke him, but his mother prayed for an angel to watch over him and Castiel answered. He never looked back.

And for the first time, even with the threat of death and destruction and another apocalypse eternally looming ahead, Dean feels free.


End file.
